A medical team from King Abdulaziz Hospital in Jeddah has successfully reattached the severed hand of a man back onto his arm in a marathon 14-hour operation. The operation took place last week. The Saudi man, 35, had his hand completely severed from his arm during a car accident that took place between Jeddah and Al-Laith city. The man's family transferred him within five hours of the accident to King Abdulaziz Hospital. “The patient arrived at the hospital at 6 P.M. He was in a very bad condition. We received his hand later,” said Dr. Essam Hamdi, head of the medical team that performed the surgery. “The patient's family brought his hand in a small pot with water and salt, which is very dangerous and wrong action,” he said. “During the operation our mission was to connect arteries and veins, which took eight hours. We then had to connect the nerves and muscles over four hours. And then we had to reattach the bones, which took another two hours,” he said. The patient has other injuries, including several wounds to the head, laceration of the left lung, and he is being kept in intensive care, Hamdi added. Hamdi said the patient will have to undergo extensive physiotherapy treatment to activate the hand's nerves. Hamdi said he has performed eight such operations in the past. He said the King Abdulaziz Hospital is the only facility in this region that performs such operations.
